


Fate's Design

by firbolging



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Angst, Mild Reference to Jester's Feelings For Fjord, Self Loathing, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25731241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firbolging/pseuds/firbolging
Summary: In which misunderstandings and name changes throw wrenches into fate's plans for Caleb and Jester.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 27
Kudos: 294





	Fate's Design

“What does it say?”

“Patience, Sapphire,” cooed Marion, pearl comb in hand to part her daughter’s hair. “It’s a little tricky to make out. Bread? No, that can’t be right. Hold still.”

“I do like bread,” said Jester.

Although her mother had insisted she stay still, she could not help but turn her head ever so slightly to admire her reflection in the mirror of the dressing table at which she sat. She was a woman now. Eighteen years old and ready for a soulmate.

“Jester!” cried Marion as she lost sight of the silver lettering. “I can’t read it if you don’t stay still.”

They had spent all day looking for the name, starting with the ankles until finally Marion had caught sight of something shining just behind Jester’s ear. Wherever her soul mark appeared, Jester had fully intended to wear it proudly, to catch the eye of her one true love. Marion’s ankle read ‘Babenon,” a fact she was forced to hide beneath stockings or jewelry when flattering clients. But when it was just the two of them, alone in their rooms above the Chateau, Jester was free to gaze fondly upon her father’s name. Though she had never met the man herself, she knew his hip read, “Marion.” Which was very special. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a soulmate with a reciprocating soul mark.

“I think I’ve got it,” said Marion.

Jester froze in anticipation. “It’s not bread, is it?”

“No, it’s not bread. I believe, one second… I believe that it says ‘Bren.’”

* * *

“Bren,” said Nott, causing Jester to pause before adding, “Jester Fancypants.”

She watched Nott carefully and wondered if she could have caught a glimpse of the lettering hidden behind Jester’s mass of blue hair. It didn’t seem likely, but maybe in the baths? Besides, if she had chosen that name to mess with Jester then she would have given her a glance or _something_ as evidence towards the conspiracy.

There was a chance, though a very small one, that this was Nott’s real name. Or the name of a relative. But that didn’t make too much sense either. Why would she have hidden her name from her friends all this time and only just offered it up to a stranger?

So maybe it was just, like, a really common name in the Empire.

* * *

“Your name is Veth,” said Caleb, his voice half-broken.

“It was.”

Jester’s heart was still weeping for Nott’s suffering when Caleb continued, “My name was Bren.”

Her weeping heart leapt up into her throat and her cold blood turned to ice. Caleb was still speaking as Jester’s hands flew instinctively to her hair, grasping in shock and embarrassment. It didn’t have to mean anything. It could not be a unique name.

“Aldric Ermendrud,” he had finished.

She caught his eye and wondered. Just for a second. Somewhere on Caleb’s pale body was likely the name, “Astrid.”

She tried to compose herself as best she could, but her heart refused to follow suit.

* * *

As he peeled off the bandages that covered his arms, and she saw the scars, she could not help but selfishly glance for a hint of “Genevieve.” Nothing. No name at all. She was being silly. She knew Caleb well enough to know that he was by no means her soulmate. If Jester, at the age of eighteen, had written out a list of the things she wanted her Bren to be, it would bear little to no resemblance to the man before her now.

So why could she not quite meet his eye? And why could she not help but smile at his vulnerability?

She supposed that he did have a very handsome chin. That would have been on her list.

* * *

She did not want to say it and it had nothing to do with whether or not Fjord might have the name hidden away somewhere. Or Caleb, she reminded herself. It just wasn’t her real name. Not anymore. Fate, of course, would have ignored that fact and painted Genevieve upon some stranger’s skin.

Amidst the laughter and the compliments, neither of which sat right with her, she could not look properly at any of them. It was silly to think the name would mean anything.

“I like Jester, okay?” she said quickly. “ _Jester_.”

It did not escape her notice that Caleb had not commented on her birth name at all.

Silly.

* * *

Even if Bren had been in the state of mind to acknowledge the passing of his eighteenth birthday, he would not have scoured his body for a soul mark. At sixteen, he had known, in his bones, that there was nobody in the world who would claim his heart as Astrid had. Now, he disregarded a fate dictated partner for a very different reason. He was, after all, a monster. When he had a clear thought on the odd day that was the thought. He was a monster. He pitied the person who might be marked with “Bren.” He hoped that he was one of the few people who was never marked for true love. More than that, he hoped that nobody out there was marked for him.

* * *

The charcoal script upon his inner thigh was not avoidable for long. In any bath, any room he was stripped and changed in, the letters were a magnet for the eye. Black against skin so pale it was almost white.

Whoever this “Genevieve,” was, he did not wonder.

If she was a match for his monstrous heart then he had no interest in meeting her and if she was no monster then he was glad for the fact that he would likely never meet anyone new ever again.

He gave the name no more than a glance and only when absolutely necessary. One day, perhaps, he might forget what it read. If he was lucky.

* * *

The grime that Caleb Widogast painted his body with was not intended to conceal his mark. Why should it? There were higher stakes than romance to worry about it. Besides, he had not forgotten the name “Genevieve.” His mind was empty of most of the years in that forsaken institute, but the details lingered.

When Caleb plunged into the private bath, he instinctively avoided looking directly at his left thigh, before realising that he could not see the mark even if he wanted to. Concealed beneath the illusion of a richer man’s clothes, Caleb sank into the warm water and sighed with relief.

He let his hair stay dirty though. A little for Nott’s sake. A little to piss off Jester.

* * *

Naked in the ocean, he felt the most careless he had in years. His toes and face and genitals all breached the water and was kissed by the Nicodranas sunlight. It was almost blissful.

In fact, it wasn’t until he pulled his trousers back on, that his soul mark caught his eye. He wouldn’t have given it much note if it had not looked startlingly different. Panicking at his own suspicion, he dressed quickly, but, when he was next changing alone, he studied the change carefully.

His suspicion had not been wrong. Where there was once a ‘G’ there was now a ‘J.’ He let out a cold, biting laugh. Had he fallen so helplessly in love with Jester Lavorre that even now his own body could not contain the secret.

No matter, he thought. No matter. He would simply keep it hidden.

* * *

“Genevieve.”

His heart broke a little when he heard it. So his body had not betrayed his heart. It had merely edited a mistake. Genevieve was not Genevieve. She was Jester. He smiled softly at her, but she did not meet anyone’s eye.

The guilt he felt for loving her so very, much when he was so very unworthy of her, lessened a fraction. He never stood a chance against it. Even fate knew that he was powerless to do anything but fall in love with this woman.

If he ever still felt a stab of concern over his soulmate being marked with his name in return, it all fell away then and there. Whatever name was hidden upon Jester’s body, there was no chance it was his. Fate could never be that cruel to her.

* * *

A little over ten years on from her eighteenth birthday, Jester was once again perched at her mother’s dressing table. Marion had her ruby red fingers in bright blue hair, pulling and twisting into an intricate braid.

“This is nice,” said Jester softly. “I haven’t had my hair like this since I was little.”

“Your hair hasn’t been long enough since you were little,” said Marion.

“I think I like it longer.”

“I like it every way. You have a perfect face. Any style suits you.”

Jester smiled at her reflection. Though it had been a very long time, she still searched for evidence of her own maturity. In her freckles and round cheeks. In her eyes which shone a little duller now. Was that what adulthood was? Did you lose a little sparkle?

She was not silly enough to believe that things had been smooth. She was not silly enough to believe that anything would ever be as smooth as she believed it to be in her childhood. Not the love between her parents and certainly not the Traveler.

But there had been beauty amidst the suffering. Friendships she would not trade for anything less than her mother’s safety or happiness. And then there was Caleb. She would never have called him her _best friend_ even discounting the Traveler. Still, she had to admit that the whipping winds of unbearable change calmed when she heard his voice. There were even moments when she felt, without question, his hands in hers or his comforting words gently caressing her ear, that there was no other Bren who she could be destined for. No other person, regardless of name, she could be destined for. Then the moment would end, and she would brush those thoughts away. Try to forget every time he looked at her and seemed to see right to the core of her person.

Behind her, Marion froze.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jester.

“Darling,” began Marion with delicacy, “When you got your tattoo, did you have your soul mark changed?”

“What? Of course not. Why? Is it different now? What does it say?”

Jester shifted and fidgeted with nerves. There was a flicker of excitement, but mostly nerves. She did not want to be proven silly in her flights of fancy once more. She did not want to be told that the way Caleb looked at her meant so much less than she had let herself believe, even if only for seconds at a time. Marion muttered commands to stay still, but how could she? When her entire course of fate was about to be changed.

“Oh,” said Marion.

“What? What’s wrong? Does it say someone really bad? Does it say Bread for real this time?”

“It says,” and Marion paused to laugh. “It says ‘Caleb.’”

Jester sat perfectly still.

* * *

She knew. She had to. There was no other reason he could think of for her sudden distance from him specifically. And he had wracked his brain for every mistake he might have made. The simple answer was that his love for her had boiled over and become too obvious to ignore. Yasha had seen it and she had been around him less than any of the others. It did not matter that he kept the mark hidden when he wore the name Jester so clearly in his eyes.

The only thing left to do was to apologise. Clarify. To let her know that no matter what was in his heart, it placed no obligation on her own.

It had always been easy to catch Jester before bed, to have a quiet word with just the two of them. Now she avoided his pointed look and walked fast, head down, away from him.

“Jester,” he called, helplessly. It was foolish of him and he hated himself immediately for the way in which she froze, still not looking back. “Please.”

Caleb had experienced many painful seconds in his life, but this was by far one of the most excruciating. He could not breathe until she finally turned to face him.

With great caution, he made his way over to her. He did not know how close she would find too close.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“What are you sorry for? Why would you be sorry? Do you think you’ve upset me somehow?”

Each question tumbled from her lips in that pitch her voice jumped to when nervous. He fought the urge to apologise again, and profusely this time.

“Jester,” he said softly, staring at her boot laces, “You do not need to be careful with me. I have… never expected anything.”

“Caleb…”

“Let me finish? Please?” A rustle of her hair implied a nod. “I did not want to be obvious, not because I wanted to protect my own heart, but because I knew it would be an unnecessary worry for you. But my feelings are nothing compared to yours. And there is nothing that would make me happier than for you to continue to seek your own happiness. In whatever form you wish.”

“Caleb, what are you talking about?”

A chill shuddered down his spine. If she had truly not known and he had just blurted it out like this… He lifted his gaze just enough to see her face. She was looking back imploringly.

“You must know,” he breathed.

“Know what?”

“If you do not know then I must have done something else to offend you. I’m sorry. I should know what it is.”

“Caleb, no,” she said, reaching out and grabbing both of his shaking hands. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Now, what’s going on with you? Because you’re talking like a crazy person.”

“I am, aren’t I?”

He let his eyes focus on the place where her thumb stroked his knuckles, leaning into the heart-bursting pain of the touch.

“I am sorry,” he repeated. “I am sorry to have put this on you in this way. I assumed that you had figured it out.”

“Figured out what?”

“That I am… uselessly in love with you. _Uselessly_. I am under no illusion of you returning these feelings, but I thought perhaps you had recognized how I felt and did not know how to act around me.”

“Caleb,” her voice was thick, and it forced him to meet her eye. Tears fell rapidly from her violet eyes, but beneath it she wore a wide smile.

The urge to apologise resurfaced, lost in the gentle kiss she pressed to his lips. Between them, their hands shifted so that their fingers were tightly intwined.

* * *

“You know,” said Caleb tentatively, “I wouldn’t mind seeing it."

Without hesitation, Jester shifted to her knees and leaned over Caleb’s lap, parting her hair. “Can you see?” she asked.

“Not a thing.”

“Well, just move the hair around until you find it.”

Caleb had run his fingers through her hair countless times by now, but the thrill of it was not lost as he delicately moved the strands of blue. Until a sliver of silver caught the candlelight.

“I think I found it,” he said. “Hold still.”

She did her best, but the position was awkward, and she thought, without much concern, that she might topple forwards and land on him. It would not be the first time. From her perspective, she could clearly see the outline of his thigh beneath the bedsheets and knew, with great pride, exactly where her name was written beneath. She could trace it without looking. She had done so, in fact. Mostly using her tongue.

Caleb had been more wary of reading his own name on her skin. Something about it terrified him. Whether it was seeing the confirmation of their matching marks, he did not know, but he suspected he was also afraid of seeing that there had been some mistake. It must have been difficult for Marion to read clearly beneath all the hair. A mistake would not be beyond the realms of possibility.

Jester grew impatient and fell, sideways, into Caleb’s chest.

“I lost it,” he grumbled, though not unhappily. Her head pressed against him was never unwelcome.

“I’ll hold still now. I promise.”

Tentatively, he began searching once more. It was easier to find a second time, just behind the ear. And really, there was no mistaking the name, even in the low light.

“Caleb,” he breathed.

“Yeah. I know! I told you.”

A half-laugh escaped his lips and he let her hair fall once more, using his now free hand to pull her impossibly closer to his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this I wrote it very quickly
> 
> please kudos/comment if you liked <3


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